How to make last-minute practice extra fun for your DC...

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Marylou
Posts: 2164
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:21 am

How to make last-minute practice extra fun for your DC...

Post by Marylou »

I thought I would share this anyone whose DCren and their parents are absolutely fed up to the back teeth with VR practice. DS was really starting to flag and I'm having trouble keeping him on the ball. He was very reluctant to sit a full-length practice test today (as we had agreed, he's only doing one full paper a week - hardly unreasonable :? ), especially as he did not do so well on last week's paper. I hit on the idea of doing the paper with him, but with a 25 minute handicap so that I would start when he was half-way through his time and we would finish at the same time. That's the theory, anyway. This is what actually happened - I sat down almost five minutes late as I hadn't synchronized my watch with the clock he was using. Not long after I had started DS announced he was "done" so I gave him the usual nag about checking etc. etc. Then DD's friend's mum arrived to pick her up after a sleepover so I felt duty bound to chat on the doorstep for a couple of minutes. By this stage DS had finished his checking and could see that I was getting stressed out still trying to meet the original deadline. He then very generously offered to give me another 5 minutes to make it "fairer". The net result was, although we both technically "passed" scored high enough to qualify, he completely stormed it whereas his parent merely scraped through, making a complete dog's breakfast of the number sequence section near the end of the paper. :oops: And because of the time handicap I genuinely didn't "let" him win!

Result
- one slightly embarrassed parent/tutor whose reputation is shot to pieces :oops: :lol: BUT with a renewed understanding of the difficulties of working accurately under time pressure
and
- one very happy and motivated boy who can't wait to repeat the exercise. :lol:
Marylou
jabba7
Posts: 263
Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 1:26 pm

Re: How to make last-minute practice extra fun for your DC..

Post by jabba7 »

Great post Marylou!
scary mum
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Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: How to make last-minute practice extra fun for your DC..

Post by scary mum »

Fantastic! As you know we only have to get as far as Wednesday now. My plan was to have DS do another practice paper tomorrow but I have got to the stage where I haven't the heart to do it to him. I think we will do a couple of the short Tutors papers instead.
scary mum
Marylou
Posts: 2164
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:21 am

Re: How to make last-minute practice extra fun for your DC..

Post by Marylou »

scary mum wrote:Fantastic! As you know we only have to get as far as Wednesday now. My plan was to have DS do another practice paper tomorrow but I have got to the stage where I haven't the heart to do it to him. I think we will do a couple of the short Tutors papers instead.
Why not throw down the gauntlet - you might be surprised at how he'll react! The frown of dismay at the prospect of yet another paper turned to eager smiles when I suggested this to DS. The slight humiliation on my part was well worth it. :wink: The trick is to set your time so that you really feel under pressure. 25 minutes was a tall order for me, I probably could have got a better result in 30.
Marylou
andyb
Posts: 645
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:27 am
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: How to make last-minute practice extra fun for your DC..

Post by andyb »

Marylou wrote:
scary mum wrote:Fantastic! As you know we only have to get as far as Wednesday now. My plan was to have DS do another practice paper tomorrow but I have got to the stage where I haven't the heart to do it to him. I think we will do a couple of the short Tutors papers instead.
Why not throw down the gauntlet - you might be surprised at how he'll react! The frown of dismay at the prospect of yet another paper turned to eager smiles when I suggested this to DS. The slight humiliation on my part was well worth it. :wink: The trick is to set your time so that you really feel under pressure. 25 minutes was a tall order for me, I probably could have got a better result in 30.
I used this method with DS1 when he was reluctant to sit and do a test - he loved the idea of beating me. I didn't give him a head start though - we just raced each other to answer each question individually.
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